At the café, Matthew had the steak again.

They sat on the terrace.

Matthew didn’t feel, now, like he had to control his cock. He had come enough, he supposed, for the time being, though he felt naked in the breeze, with his shorts wet, the wind rippling the polyester, and blowing it up into a big, blousy pocket every now and then.

Lukas was silent.

Matthew didn’t know what to say.

‘If we come up again, I’ll bring my boogie board for you.’

Lukas had got dumped plenty today. And he had been complaining of a headache. Matthew remembered how it had felt this morning in Lukas’ body, how sore Lukas’ balls had been, how sick he had felt in the stomach.

And Lukas couldn’t body surf. It couldn’t be much fun getting dumped every time.

He could bring the body board for Lukas. He could at least do that.

Lukas nodded, chewing on the steak. He was cold, obviously. His lips were dark red, and his cheeks pink. He had ordered the same meal as Matthew.

‘It’s pretty old. Just a foam one.’

Lukas nodded again, and took a sip of his coke. He seemed to be having trouble swallowing.

If Matthew had Lukas up on his stomach on a board, then he would be able to see Lukas’ arse in the speedos properly. He could hold onto the board for Lukas, steady it for him, and guide him out into the waves.

On the way home, Matthew worked out how to drive Lukas’ car properly, using the paddle shift, and on the winding road out to highway, he threw it into the corners and floored it.

It was unreal. The best car he had ever driven.

The engine roared.

Lukas hadn’t cheered up much, but they had been speaking.

‘Tell me if you think I should slow down,’ Matthew said.

‘It’s okay.’

‘It feels pretty good, eh?’

When they got back out to the highway, Matthew started thinking about how he had hit Lukas’ balls with that hammer. Today, if he brought the body board, he would have been able to look up between Lukas’ legs, see the bulge of his little sack there, and imagine how tender Lukas’ balls were.

He would definitely bring the board next time. And do it again, with the hammer, or something like that before he came.

If only he had done that with his own hands. In his own body.

He imagined it, imagined how he could hold the hammer, and smash Lukas’ nuts. If he was allowed to, if Lukas let him, he would smash them with a quick one two – right left. No fucking around.

But he had actually done that! Not with his own hand. With Lukas’ hand. But he had hit them hard. He could have crushed them.

And Lukas was sitting right beside him right now! Letting him drive his car.

His balls were probably still aching.

Matthew tried to stop it but his cock rose up. He knew it. And there was no way he could help it. He stole a glance down, and saw his cock poking straight up in the air, stretching all of the looseness in his shorts out so that they were pulled up between his legs. It was a tent. A teepee.

There was nothing he could do about it.

He tried to think of something else, tried to concentrate on the road, but if anything, his cock just seemed to get harder, to get longer, and bigger, straining to get out of the polyester shorts. Every now and then he felt it jerk, involuntarily, and he had to follow this with a couple of jerks that he couldn’t help making, feeling his cock straining, sliding in precum.

He didn’t want to look down again, and didn’t think Lukas had noticed. If Matthew said nothing, Lukas would have no reason to turn towards him. So they drove toward Lakeshore in silence.

When they came into the city, more than an hour later, and stopped at the first set of lights, Matthew looked down.

It was worse than he thought.

The shorts, which were a pale blue, had a dark patch of precum on them more than twice the size of his head. And it was obviously the head of his cock underneath it. It was the shape of it. It had shaped itself into the shorts, making a precum hood for itself.

Lukas looked down at it because Matthew was looking at something.

Matthew looked up and stared at the road.

It was late afternoon, and bright sunlight was streaming into the car.

Out of the corner of his eye, Matthew saw Lukas turn his head up suddenly, turn away, though he had looked for long enough, as though he had been caught, like a rabbit in the glare of headlights.

Suddenly, as Matthew put his foot down to take off from the lights, he came spontaneously into his shorts. He felt it coming, but couldn’t do anything about it. And it hurt. He jetted a load that couldn’t get out of the eye of his cock in a hurry. A load that was trapped by the shorts.

At the next lights he looked down again. Come had seeped all through the fine fabric, and there was a pile of it on the top of his head.

Lukas had his head turned determinedly away, looking out of the window. There was nothing Matthew could do. The lights changed. He had take off again. It wasn’t like he could wipe it with his hand.

By the time they got to Eden Park he had managed to wipe the come off with the underside of his T-shirt, though it was all through his shorts, all through his pubes, and on the insides of his thighs. He could feel it in his arse crack. Underneath his perineum. It was probably wetting the leather on the seat.

Matthew thought of everything he could, thought of horror, war, fruit, animals, the engineering involved in building a bridge, played a piece of Chopin in his head, and remembered a time he had fallen off his bike and broken his arm. When they pulled into Lukas’ garage, his cock was flaccid, and he was able to stand up with only a wet patch on his shorts and say goodbye to Lukas.

#

The following day, when Matthew visited Lukas in his bed, Lukas was upset.

He was crying.

It felt awful.

It was no fun being with Lukas.

Lukas was thinking about Matthew, about how Matthew didn’t like him anymore. He was thinking about what had happened in the shower, thinking about how Matthew had said, ‘What are you gay or something?’ when Lukas got an erection. He was thinking about how he had got an erection, and telling himself how stupid he was for letting that happen. He was remembering it, with shame, and remembering the look on Matthew’s face, remembering the size of Matthew’s gear, the size of his cock, and hating Matthew for having such a big cock, for having such a perfect body, for having pubes.

As if Matthew would ever want to comfort and protect him.

He was pathetic.

He was a tiny little, pathetic, girly thing, in comparison to Matthew.

‘Not a man!’ he said to himself. ‘I’m not a man!’

He was crying.

The sight of Matthew’s cock kept recurring to him, the sight of how big it was, and he felt like hurting himself, like smashing all of his gear. It was pathetic. A little boy’s cock! A little boy’s balls!

What man would ever want to be with him?

Oh, why did he have to be gay?

Why couldn’t he just be like other guys?

And like women?

But he didn’t like them. He didn’t see how any guy could. He thought it was a joke. That it was something other guys were pretending to like. How could they want to be with women instead of with men?

He just didn’t understand that.

And Matthew!

Lukas had thought he was different.

Had thought, finally, I’ve got a friend. Somehow who he could even tell he was gay.

‘Fuck that!’ Lukas said.

He wouldn’t be seeing Matthew again. Matthew hadn’t spoken all the way home. And then, when they were in the city, Lukas had looked at his fucking cock again!

And it was so fucking ‘big.’ He groaned the word into the pillow. He wrapped the pillow around his head, smothering himself, until his face was hot.

Matthew supposed he would have to ring Lukas.

Lukas started thinking about how he could kill himself. He started thinking about how he could gas himself in the car. Or drown himself in the lake. Or hang himself in the studio.

Matthew would have to ring him.

He jerked himself backward in his bed and ripped the glasses off his head.

‘Ow!’ he said.

He had done that one too many times. Had raked big scratches up the side of his head time and time again.

In the surf, yesterday, his head had stung.

He went into the bathroom and tried to look at what he had done. His hair was so thick that he couldn’t see the scratches properly, though above his ears, he found the three little holes he had drilled into either side of his head. They were infected.

So much for acupuncture points. Whoever had designed those glasses had been an idiot.

Matthew supposed he could cut them off. He walked back into his bedroom, picked the glasses up, and frowned at them. They looked expensive. The sort of thing that would cost two or three hundred dollars. In Italy. Or wherever Christian had got them. Matthew didn’t expect to see Christian again, but still, they were on loan.

He found some Dettol in his vanity, disinfected the pins in the arms of the glasses, and dabbed some onto the sides of his head.

Maybe he could do it without the glasses. Christian had said he didn’t need anything. Not the glasses. Or the tablets. Or the jocks.

Matthew had forgotten the jocks yesterday. He didn’t need to get Lukas’ scent. He already had it, he supposed. And he had been glad, this morning, to finally remember to do something about the jocks. He had put them into the cavity under his bedside cabinet. Both pairs.

Matthew put the Dettol away and found his phone.

It was under a pile of papers on his desk.

He punched Lukas’ number, but there was no answer.

It went to message.

Matthew hung up.

‘Fuck,’ Matthew said, sitting down on his bed and leaning forward, putting his forearms on his knees. He had been a prick to Lukas.

He could text him.

‘I don’t care if u r gay.’

No.

That would be stupid.

‘Call me,’ he decided on. And added, ‘I’m bored.’